Mobile phones have been rapidly spreading in recent years and proposals have been made to use mobile phones as controllers for controlling electrical home appliances.
For example, according to Patent Literature 1, main menu screen data stored in a ROM or the like is read out and a main menu screen that is an initial screen for starting a data communication mode is displayed on a liquid crystal display. Subsequently, as a “remote control information” item is selected from items on the main menu screen, remote control information screen data is received from a server and a remote control information screen presenting names of manufacturers of electrical products in a list format is displayed on the liquid crystal display. When one of the manufacturers' names is selected using a cursor linked to a group of operation input buttons, the mobile phone and a remote control data providing server operated by the manufacturer are connected to each other. Once communication is established, the remote control data providing server sends product list screen data to the mobile phone. Upon receiving the product list screen data, the mobile phone displays a list of names of electrical products in the form of a product list screen. A user selects a name of the electrical product whose remote control specification data the user wants to acquire from the screen. The remote control specification data of the selected electrical product is stored in an internal nonvolatile memory.
In this manner, according to Patent Literature 1, remote control specification data that is necessary for operating a desired electrical product is appropriately acquired from remote control data providing servers of a plurality of manufacturers and stored in a nonvolatile memory. As a result, a mobile phone can be operated as a remote controller.
However, with the mobile phone according to Patent Literature 1 described above, an operation object device must be specified as an initial setting when using the mobile phone as a remote controller. However, specifying an operation object device and displaying a menu screen corresponding to the operation object device requires performing many procedures (steps). In particular, registering a plurality of electric devices as operation object devices in a mobile phone requires a user to perform a significantly large number of input operations. As a result, performing such operations is a hassle.